Toy Soap

See in set:

Not all soaps are created equal – some simply clean, while others contain a small surprise! Your child can create a toy soap sure to provide bath time fun for himself or, when given as a gift, a friend!

What You Need:

What You Do:

Help your child set up the cheese grater and soap so that he can grate the bar of soap. He should grate until he collects about 1 cup of soap gratings.

Next, have him pour the soap gratings into the bowl and add ¼ cup of warm water. He should also pick a color of soap he’d like to create, and add a few drops of that color from food coloring (Be sure to wash the cheese grater well before reusing it with food products!).

Next, he should stir the mixture until the color and water mix with the soap and the mixture starts to harden a bit.

Have him remove the mixture from the bowl and start kneading it with his hands, like a ball of dough. He can make the dough into a round ball shape.

Now he can choose a small rubber or plastic toy that will be the surprise inside of the soap. It could be a small plastic animal or a small rubber ball; anything fun to play with in the bathtub is a good idea. He can bury this toy inside the ball and cover it back up with the soap/dough mixture, remaking the ball shape.

Let the ball of soap dry overnight.

He can give this soap as a gift or play with it in the bath himself. After the soap begins to be used, the surprise toy will gradually appear as the bar wears down. Not only is it fun, it's a great way to motivate kids to wash up!

Beth Levin has an M.A. in Curriculum and Education from Columbia University Teachers College. She has written educational activities for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill and Renaissance Learning publishers. She has a substitute teaching credential for grades K-12 in Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.